In a sad event the Jordan family experienced a house fire due to Samsung’s washing machine. Emma Jordan had just put a load of washing in the machine and went for a swim in her pool when her fire alarm went off. She hurried back in her house which is on the Gold Coast and saw flames busting out of her laundry.
According to the company itself there have been 179 incidents nationwide which involve six defective Samsung washing machine models since the company issued a recall for them in April 2013.
These incidents include overheating, smoking or catching fire. However these incidents can be easily under-reported as many state fire and emergency services do not record the detail of the brand of appliance that causes an electrical fire.
Now despite the effort by Samsung to recall the defected washing machines, more than 83000 of these defected devices are still out there and this is a huge threat to households.
Another incident which is the latest of these incidents took place on Wednesday, when Jacquie Briskham of Salamander Bay in NSE discovered the blaze.
She was lucky in managing to limit the damage by switching off her mains power and fighting the fire with a garden hose.
However Emma and Craig Jordan weren’t as lucky as Jacquie. The fire has left their house covered in black toxic chemical grease from the burning of the laundry products.
Their ceiling and wall has been damaged because of the fire as well. The fire took place in January and Samsung took the responsibility for paying for the family’s temporary accommodation. The family has at last moved back to their own house last week.
Samsung has over the years taken appropriate measures to alert the users by taking out newspaper advertisements, issuing media releases and even contacted partner retailers in order to obtain customer details.
Even after taking such extensive measures there around 83000 washing machines out of nearly 150000 sold across Australia that have yet to be serviced. The problem with the machine is the water leakage that leads to an electrical fire.
However the Jordans and Jacquie Briskham stated that were never contacted either by Samsung or by the stores from where they bought the machines to alert them for the recall of these defected pieces.
